Need for speed-cameras: The Department of Education’s executive superintendent of the division of family and community engagement, Yolanda Torres, said the school-zone speed cameras are a matter of life and death for city public school students.

The Republican-led state Senate must return to Albany and pass a bill to preserve and expand the city’s school-zone speed-camera program, according to a group of local pols, officials, and activists who gathered outside MS 88 in Greenwood Heights on Aug. 8.

Assemblyman Robert Carroll (D–Park Slope) said that speed cameras are a common-sense measure that should not be up for debate, but accused Senate Republicans of not caring about the city’s speed-camera program because only one of the party’s 31 state senators — state Sen. Marty Golden (R–Bay Ridge) — actually represents the city.

“They don’t care about New York City — they think New York City should just drop dead,” Carroll said. “It’s disgusting that a program that is so benign to the average person — renewing 140 cameras and adding an additional 50 every year — would be so controvers­ial.”

An official with city’s Department of Education said that the speed cameras can be a life-or-death matter for the city’s 1.1 million schoolchildren.

“Our families deserve to know that we’re doing everything we possibly can in order to ensure that all students are safe, and that we need to have these speed cameras turned back on,” said Yolanda Torres, the department’s executive superintendent of the division of family and community engagement. “Community members’ safety and their lives are priceless, precious, and valuable.”

Statistics prove the devices slow drivers down and improve safety. There were more than 60-percent fewer speeding violations in school zones with speed cameras in the two years after they were first installed in 2014, and a nearly 15-percent reduction in injuries in school zones with the cameras, according to a transportation agency report published last year.

Flanagan later penned an op-ed in the New York Daily News blaming Senate Democrats for wanting to expand the program rather than only preserve it, and blasting Gov. Andrew Cuomo for not calling both the Senate and Assembly back to Albany before the camera authorization expired — even though the Assembly had already passed the camera expansion bill before the end of its session.

At Wednesday’s press conference, Carroll said Cuomo should take such action only if the state Senate fails to reconvene for a vote on the bill before city public schools re-open in September.

“If the state Senate continues to shirk its responsibility and continues to not care about New York’s public schoolchildren, the Governor has to step in,” Carroll said. “The Governor has to do everything in his authority to call the entire legislature back so that we get these cameras back on after Labor Day.”

Councilman Carlos Menchaca (D–Sunset Park) said locals should remember their reps’ inaction when they head to the polls this fall, and vote out the state senators who are up for re-election and failed to save the speed cameras. Golden and Felder are both up for re-election in November, though Menchaca didn’t mention them by name.

“The message that we must repeat in the next few weeks, in the next months, as we get closer to elections, is that we have to register to vote and make our voices heard,” Menchaca said. “That is what is going to change the ability of our communities to lead and make things happen — vote, vote, vote.”

But Jane Martin-Lavaud — whose 24-year-old daughter Leonora died in a crash at East Fifth Street and Avenue U in 2013 — reminded attendees that the issue of speed cameras is more than just a political football. Clutching a photo of her daughter, Martin-Lavaud told the crowd that she never imagined her daughter would be killed by a speeding driver, and that the speed cameras are a no-brainer that should eventually be expanded beyond school zones.

“Like every parent, I expected my children to outlive me. I expected them to lead full and productive lives,” Martin-Lavaud said. “I don’t understand why this is even a conversation. We want to start with school zones, but we need to expand this program to protect all of our community members.”

Reader feedback

Jeff from Bay Ridge/Bensonhurst says:

Everybody has the wrong idea regarding speed cameras. A vehicle speeding and is caught by a speed camera get a $50 ticket. The ticket is mailed to owner of the registered vehicle.The driver DOES NOT receive the ticket nor is any points charged to his/her driver's license. Another point is the speed cameras CANNOT capture the driver and ticket the driver. By law any accused person can cross examine their accuser. In this case being a speed camera is a device and not a person, the accuser would not have the opportunity of cross examine.

Aug. 10, 3:16 pm

Enter your comment below

Name:

Neighborhood:

By submitting this comment, you agree to the following terms:

You agree that you, and not BrooklynDaily.com or its affiliates, are fully responsible for the content that you post. You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening or sexually-oriented material or any material that may violate applicable law; doing so may lead to the removal of your post and to your being permanently banned from posting to the site. You grant to BrooklynDaily.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual and fully sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part world-wide and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.